Protest practice and (tree) cultures of conflict: understanding the spaces of ‘tree maiming’ in eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century England

Abstract

Developing understandings of protest and cultures of resistance has been a central theme of the ‘new’ cultural geography of the 1990s and 2000s. But whilst geographers of the here and now have been highly sensitive to the importance of acts of protest which occur outside of the context of broader social movements, geographers concerned with past protests have tended to focus overwhelmingly upon either understanding the development of social movements or highly specific place‐based studies. Through a focus upon the hitherto ignored practice of ‘tree maiming’, this paper demonstrates not only the value of examining specific protest practices in helping to better understand the complexity of conflict, but also how in periods of acute socio‐economic change the evolving relationship between humans and the non‐human – in this case trees – is a central discourse to the protest practices of the poor. Such attacks often involved complex cultural understandings about the ways in which trees should – and should not – be socially enrolled.

Small acts, kind words and “not too much fuss”: Implicit activisms

“…For example, Chatterton (2006 270) notes a tendency for many accounts of environmental and/or anti-globalisation activism to highlight spectacular, staged 'actions', whilst problematically deferring attention to more banal, day-to-day practices "of collectively challenging social relations in our everyday lives which we all continually help to reproduce". Elsewhere, likewise, Griffin (2008Griffin ( 94, also 2005) notes a tendency for chief 5 In total, the evaluation project entailed four major lines of research: (i) in-depth interviews with 150 users of the Sure Start Centre; (ii) shorter interviews with 50 parents/carers who were entitled to use the Centre, but did not; (iii) interviews with staff and stakeholders at the Centre; (iv) qualitative projects with young children using the Centre. Being statutorily required at the time, the project was comissioned from the Sure Start Centre's core funding.…”

“…A tendency to orient accounts of activism around key events or actions (see also point viii), and/or around the agency of key leaders, thinkers or ideologues. Such an approach has often had the effect of problematically over-simplifying the complex, contingent contexts, temporalities and causal happenings which produce(d) such events (McCarthy and McMillan 2003), and effacing the coproductive presence of manifold (human and nonhuman) agents in affording activism in practice (Massey 2000, Wilbert 2000, Griffin 2008). iv).…”

Placemaking Through Protest: An Archaeology of the Lees Cross and Endcliffe Protest Camp, Derbyshire, England

“…Such work can have a broad relevance; it is striking when reviewing the academic literature on eco-activism and contemporary social movements how little critical consideration is given to space and material culture (though see Anderson 2004). Such social movements are built around alternative lifestyles and beliefs, and maintain organisational structures (or 'disorganisations') which are rhizomatic and non-hierarchical (Griffin 2008). This presently seems an under-valued opportunity to investigate communities that strongly oppose the flows of normative cultural and political forces.…”

Following the Actors: mobilising an actor-network theory methodology in geography

“…Yeung (2002) notes that much of the work within geography which draws on ANT places its analytical focus on unearthing the complex web of relations between humans and non-humans, and is an attempt to Following the Actors 453 accord non-humans their due place in the construction of the world. In recent years, a number of authors have heeded the call to recognise non-human actors (Griffin 2008;Grove 2009;Power 2008Power , 2009, despite concerns of some that the human/non-human division is 'neither natural nor inevitable but is the outcome of a ''labour of division'' ' (Whittle & Spicer 2008, p. 616). Unconcerned with the project of modernity, ANT explores the strategies recursively and productively embedded in the relations that make up objects, organisations and subjects, and proposes that there are many possible modes of ordering, not just one (Law 2000c).…”